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Saturday, 19 July 2014

I am sure that most of my readers support the political ideology that can be summed up as liberal democracy. Now, I don't mean supporting the Liberal Democrats, but that basic model of Western politics which has its emphasis on democracy and the rule of law.

Now take the anarchist. He will, like the person who has been brainwashed into supporting liberal democracy (which saturates society, with - and this is shocking - people being appointed to the House of Lords as representatives of certain sub-ideologies within the broad umbrella of liberal democracy), reject fascism and communism, but will go one ideology further - he will reject liberal democracy.

The thing is, the anarchist rejects fascism and communism for completely different reasons to those of the believer in liberal democracy. For the former, it is because he rejects all political ideologies; for the latter, it is because he has a strong belief that there is a political ideology that works, that is essential to the running of a free society, and that liberal democracy is an exclusive ideology, with fascism and communism being incompatible with its values.

We often hear an atheist argument that, like Christians, they are atheists with regards to Ra etc. but just go one god further.

As a Christian, Jesus makes an exclusivity claim. He is not there to be added on to existing ideologies (and I appreciate that there is a lot of syncretism around, and that even churches can play along with syncretism). Jesus is not there as another holy man, orbiting a central god with Buddha orbiting over there. Jesus is uniquely God.

A Christian rejects Ra because of Jesus's claim to exclusivity - Ra-worship is incompatible with being a Christian.

An atheist also rejects Ra, but for completely different reasons. That is because he rejects any deity.

This "we just go one god further" argument sounds plausible until you actually examine it in detail.

Sunday, 13 July 2014

Earlier this year saw the eighth direct elections to the European Parliament, and Scotland saw the election of 2 Scottish National Party, 2 Labour, 1 Conservative and 1 UK Independence Party Members of the European Parliament.

If the European election results were repeated at a general election, then:

The Scottish National Party would gain 17 seats from Labour and 6 from the Liberal Democrats - a net gain of 23.

The Conservatives would gain 4 seats from the Liberal Democrats and 2 from Labour -a net gain of 6.

The Liberal Democrats would lose 4 seats to the Conservatives and 6 to the Scottish National Party - a net loss of 10.

Labour would lose 2 seats to the Conservatives and 17 to the Scottish National Party - a net loss of 19.

This would give a final result of:

Scottish National Party - 29

Labour - 22

Conservative - 7

Liberal Democrat - 1

The Liberal Democrats would have lost their deposit in 29 constituencies, the Greens in 6 and the Conservatives in 1. Labour, the Scottish National Party and UK Independence Party all achieved over 5% of the vote in every constituency in Scotland.

This seat is also the most Unionist seat. If you take the Conservatives, Labour, Liberal Democrats and UKIP to be the Unionist parties, then they have 73.49% of the vote between them. If you consider the Nationalist vote to be the SNP and Greens, then these parties have 24.50% of the vote between them. Indeed, across Scotland, 58 constituencies would see the combined Unionist vote ahead of the combined Nationalist.

One thing that is striking is the marginal nature of many seats. There are 14 constituencies where the gap between the first and third parties is less than 10%:

Edinburgh South West - 0.84% (SNP/Lab/C)

Ayrshire Central - 2.56% (SNP/Lab/C)

Edinburgh North & Leith - 3.17% (Lab/SNP/Grn)

Ayr, Carrick & Cumnock - 3.31% (Lab/SNP/C)

Edinburgh South - 3.53% (Lab/C/SNP)

Fife North East - 3.74% (C/SNP/LD)

Aberdeen South - 4.15% (SNP/C/Lab)

Renfrewshire East - 5.12% (C/Lab/SNP)

Glasgow North - 6.41% (SNP/Lab/Grn)

Stirling - 6.73% (SNP/Lab/C)

Dunbartonshire East - 7.31% (SNP/Lab/C)

East Lothian - 8.41% (Lab/SNP/C)

Edinburgh West - 8.62% (C/SNP/LD)

Argyll & Bute - 9.55% (SNP/C/LD)

In 5 of these case, the gap between the first and fourth parties is also less than 10%:

Edinburgh South - 4.27% (Lab/C/SNP/Grn)

Edinburgh North & Leith - 6.56% (Lab/SNP/Grn/C)

Fife North East - 7.97% (C/SNP/LD/UKIP)

Dunbartonshire East - 9.26% (SNP/Lab/C/LD)

Edinburgh South West - 9.76% (SNP/Lab/C/UKIP)

There is one more thing to note about these constituency results. The UKIP share of the vote doesn't change dramatically from constituency to constituency, and this is a property of how the figures are calculated.

We have two sets of data for each council area:

The number of votes won by each party at the European election

The number of votes won by each party in each ward at the last local elections

These are used to break down the European result by ward. For example, suppose a council area is split between two constituencies, with 60% of its electors in constituency A and 40% in B. It might seem logical to split each party's vote this way - so if a party won 10,000 votes, assume 6,000 were cast in constituency A and 40% in constituency B.

However, when we examine the local election results, we find that at the last local elections, one party won 75% of its local election vote in the part of the council area lying in constituency A. It would be sensible to reflect this in how we split the European result - so, assume 7,500 of its votes were cast in constituency A and 25% in constituency B.

It seems obvious to say this, but you can only vote for those who are actually standing. In a European election, everyone in Scotland can vote for the parties on the Scotland ballot paper. It doesn't matter whether you're in Selkirkshire or Ross-shire, you have the same set of candidates. At the General election, the main parties will contest practically every seat.

Now, not every party contests every seat in local elections. So we make an assumption that if someone supported party X, but X wasn't contesting the local election in their ward, they would choose to stay at home rather than vote for another party. In each ward, for each party that stands, we work out its share of the vote (as this is Single Transferable Vote, we consider first preferences) as a proportion of the electorate. We assume that if party X had stood in a ward which it didn't, then its vote would have been equivalent to its share in the contested ward where it achieved its worst result. For example, in a council area, X's worst result is 1.5% of the electorate in one ward. So, if there is a ward it didn't contest, with an electorate of 5,000, we assume that if it had stood, it would have won 75 votes (1.5% of 5,000) there.

For the generic "Others", we would, in the example above, put 60% of their vote in constituency A and 40% in constituency B. And likewise if a party didn't contest any wards in a council area.

For Scotland, the local results used are from May 2012 - when UKIP didn't contest all that many wards. This explains why their vote doesn't vary much. There may be pockets of support (look at the Greens in Glasgow's constituencies, for example) - the strong result in Fife North East can be explained by the influence of the East Neuk & Landward ward. The next local elections are May 2017 (assuming Scotland is still part of the UK), and it is likely that, now that UKIP has its first MEP, it will make a push to gain seats in the Scottish Parliament in May 2016 and then focus on local elections the following year. When I break the May or June 2019 European elections down into Westminster constituencies, there will be more data to use.

Yet, this doesn't get reflected in constituency names - there is no Ipswich South, Bournemouth West & Poole East or Poole South.

Only 45% of the Norwich North constituency lies in Norwich itself, with the remainder split between the Norfolk towns of Hellesdon, Sprowston and Thorpe St Andrew. However, here it would be tricky to come up with an accurate name - you either come up with a long-winded thing like Norwich North, Sprowston, Thorpe St Andrew & Hellesdon, or you rely on a short name which reflects a minority of the constituency.

Every Boundary Commission has a trade-off between accuracy and simplicity when it comes to constituency names.

In Yorkshire it gets interesting. You would not be surprised that Bradford East (Liberal Democrat), Bradford South (Labour) and Bradford West (held since a by-election in March 2012 by Respect - The Unity Coalition) are in Bradford. Yet they only make up 59% of Bradford - with the remainder being in two constituencies, Keighley (Conservative) and Shipley (also Conservative), making Bradford unique among British cities by having MPs for 4 parties representing it.

There is no town or city called "Strathkelvin" - it was the name of a District Council set up by the Local Government (Scotland) Act 1973 and then abolished under the Local Government etc. (Scotland) Act 1994, which ensured that all of Scotland was covered by unitary authorities - the anti-devolutionist Conservative government unwittingly doing something that has to be done prior to devolution (to avoid there being three tiers of local/regional government.

Strathkelvin was basically the towns of Bishopbriggs, Chryston and Kirkintilloch and the villages around them (so even the "Strathkelvin & Bearsden" constituency name was inaccurate, as the Chryston area was not in the constituency). Under the 1994 reforms, this area was split between the council areas of East Dunbartonshire (Bishopbriggs, Kirkintilloch) and North Lanarkshire (Chryston). Clydebank & Milngavie was another constituency split between council areas - the Clydebank area ended up in West Dunbartonshire, while Milngavie joined with Bishopbriggs and Kirkintilloch.

When the Boundary Commission drew up its proposals for 2005 (which are still in force), it suggested a Bishopbriggs, Bearsden & Kirkintilloch West, reflecting the fact that Kirkintilloch would be split across constituencies. The name wasn't totally accurate - convenience strikes again - as there was no mention of Milngavie. But the Commission settled on Dunbartonshire East - again, not totally accurate as it is smaller than the council area.

Saturday, 5 July 2014

Their end is destruction, their god is their belly, and they glory in their shame, with minds set on earthly things.(Phil. 3:19)

But I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh. For the desires of the flesh are against the Spirit, and the desires of the Spirit are against the flesh, for these are opposed to each other, to keep you from doing the things you want to do. But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law. Now the works of the flesh are evident: sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions, divisions, envy, drunkenness, orgies, and things like these. I warn you, as I warned you before, that those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God. But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law. And those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires.(Gal. 5:16-24)

While the Galatians passage doesn't specifically mention gluttony, tie it in with Philippians and you see that this is a desire of the flesh - it comes under idolatry, as for a glutton their god is situated in their stomach.

Or do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor men who practice homosexuality, nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God. And such were some of you. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God. (I Cor 6:9-11)

So, there we have it. Short and simple.

Except that's not what I'm talking about. There is a lot in the New Testament about eating which is not about gluttony, but about respect. If we go back to Galatians 5, we find that the Apostle Paul talks about freedom:

For you were called to freedom, brothers. Only do not use your freedom as an opportunity for the flesh, but through love serve one another. (v.13)

We're free in Christ - but this isn't an excuse to please ourselves, but to serve others. And one way to serve is to avoid stumbling blocks.

As for the one who is weak in faith, welcome him, but not to quarrel over opinions. One person believes he may eat anything, while the weak person eats only vegetables. Let not the one who eats despise the one who abstains, and let not the one who abstains pass judgment on the one who eats, for God has welcomed him. Who are you to pass judgment on the servant of another? It is before his own master that he stands or falls. And he will be upheld, for the Lord is able to make him stand.

One person esteems one day as better than another, while another esteems all days alike. Each one should be fully convinced in his own mind. The one who observes the day, observes it in honour of the Lord. The one who eats, eats in honour of the Lord, since he gives thanks to God, while the one who abstains, abstains in honour of the Lord and gives thanks to God. For none of us lives to himself, and none of us dies to himself. For if we live, we live to the Lord, and if we die, we die to the Lord. So then, whether we live or whether we die, we are the Lord's. For to this end Christ died and lived again, that he might be Lord both of the dead and of the living.

Why do you pass judgment on your brother? Or you, why do you despise your brother? For we will all stand before the judgment seat of God; for it is written,

“As I live, says the Lord, every knee shall bow to me, and every tongue shall confess to God.”

So then each of us will give an account of himself to God.

Therefore let us not pass judgment on one another any longer, but rather decide never to put a stumbling block or hindrance in the way of a brother. I know and am persuaded in the Lord Jesus that nothing is unclean in itself, but it is unclean for anyone who thinks it unclean. For if your brother is grieved by what you eat, you are no longer walking in love. By what you eat, do not destroy the one for whom Christ died. So do not let what you regard as good be spoken of as evil. For the kingdom of God is not a matter of eating and drinking but of righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit. Whoever thus serves Christ is acceptable to God and approved by men. So then let us pursue what makes for peace and for mutual upbuilding.

Do not, for the sake of food, destroy the work of God. Everything is indeed clean, but it is wrong for anyone to make another stumble by what he eats. It is good not to eat meat or drink wine or do anything that causes your brother to stumble. The faith that you have, keep between yourself and God. Blessed is the one who has no reason to pass judgment on himself for what he approves. But whoever has doubts is condemned if he eats, because the eating is not from faith. For whatever does not proceed from faith is sin. (Rom. 14)

Note that Paul is not saying vegetarians have a weak faith. I remember when I started working for Methodist Homes for the Aged and being shocked that meat was being served. I explained that up till then, all the Methodists I had know had been vegetarians. As a result, I had simply assumed that Methodists put meat in the same category as alcohol - something to be avoided.

And can I also say - if someone does hold a different opinion to you, don't smugly assume they are the "weaker brethren". They might be right, and you wrong; or it might not matter either way.

Why does Paul talk about meat? Well, we can look at what he wrote to the Corinthians:

Now concerning food offered to idols: we know that “all of us possess knowledge.” This “knowledge” puffs up, but love builds up. If anyone imagines that he knows something, he does not yet know as he ought to know. But if anyone loves God, he is known by God.

Therefore, as to the eating of food offered to idols, we know that “an idol has no real existence,” and that “there is no God but one.” For although there may be so-called gods in heaven or on earth—as indeed there are many “gods” and many “lords”—yet for us there is one God, the Father, from Whom are all things and for whom we exist, and one Lord, Jesus Christ, through Whom are all things and through whom we exist.

However, not all possess this knowledge. But some, through former association with idols, eat food as really offered to an idol, and their conscience, being weak, is defiled. Food will not commend us to God. We are no worse off if we do not eat, and no better off if we do. But take care that this right of yours does not somehow become a stumbling block to the weak. For if anyone sees you who have knowledge eating in an idol's temple, will he not be encouraged, if his conscience is weak, to eat food offered to idols? And so by your knowledge this weak person is destroyed, the brother for whom Christ died. Thus, sinning against your brothers and wounding their conscience when it is weak, you sin against Christ. Therefore, if food makes my brother stumble, I will never eat meat, lest I make my brother stumble. (I Cor. 8)

This was an issue in Corinth at the time - all meat sold in the market had been sacrificed to idols. While some Christians would know that these idols were nothing, others could think that a Christian eating such food was engaging in worship of idols, and was adopting Syncretism. That could then lead to a Christian thinking "oh, so it's OK for me to worship X alongside Jesus". With halal meat being served more in the United Kingdom, this could become an issue that will become more relevant as time goes on.

It's not just about food - really it is anything that could lead a Christian to go back to something that was an idol for them, regardless of whether it was an idol for us. I remember a conversation with one Christian man recently - his church had been holding meetings in a pub, as part of outreach to men. Now, I am teetotal, but I don't force that on other Christians. But, he mentioned, there is a slight concern - what about men who were alcoholics before becoming Christians? Christian men can enjoy a pint with their mates, but it just takes one drink for an ex-alcoholic to begin the journey to no longer being an ex-alcoholic. The sight of his brothers sipping beer could be too much for him, and so he goes to the bar....

But what I'm thinking of isn't gluttony. Nor is it meat sacrificed to idols. It's something else Paul wrote about:

For though I am free from all, I have made myself a servant to all, that I might win more of them. To the Jews I became as a Jew, in order to win Jews. To those under the law I became as one under the law (though not being myself under the law) that I might win those under the law. To those outside the law I became as one outside the law (not being outside the law of God but under the law of Christ) that I might win those outside the law. To the weak I became weak, that I might win the weak. I have become all things to all people, that by all means I might save some. I do it all for the sake of the Gospel, that I may share with them in its blessings. (I Cor. 9:19-23).

A tricky verse - Paul is not calling for us to be chamaeleon Christians (or Karma Chamaeleon Christians when reaching out to Hindus).

I have recently started a new job. When in a workplace, there can be huge religious differences. Some places you get the twenty-/thirty-somethings who see Christianity as a relic from the last century and have a world which is post-post-Christian (in a post-Christian society there are still vestiges of Christian heritage). Or, even tougher, the people who are Christians because "this is a Christian country" and "the Queen is Head of the Church of England", and all you need is to be "respectable", not do anything seriously wrong and make sure you do a good turn every day, and you've passed. Or you get the adherents of Christmasianity who want to convert everyone.

And then there is the different environment, one which I am in again. And it's the one I prefer, if I am totally honest. It's the one where you see the turban and the khimār, the colourful shalwar kameez, or where someone shows off her henna tattoo skills.

It's the world where Christianity is just another minority faith.

It's the environment where you work late on a Thursday, ask a passing colleague for help with a case, and his response is to say that he'll help when he's back from prayers.

It's the multi-cultural world.

It's the world that the early Church had to exist in.

What's this got to do with food? Well, it's about food and respect.

I have found myself with Muslim friends. Christianity has developed a reputation for being quite wussy and there are groups - primarily Christian Vision for Men - who are keen to develop a male-friendly expression of Christianity. What I notice about Muslims I have got to know is that there is that combination of rejecting the laddish lifestyle that often seems an essential part of being male ("Don't drink, don't smoke, what do you do?") and at the same time being macho. There is no contradiction between holding a faith and being masculine - something the church has lost.

Currently it is Ramadam. So for them it is a time of fasting. Through conversations I have learned that it involves a lot of self-discipline, and is tough.

And I snack at my desk.

I'm not the only one, but what temptation does it throw in the path of a faster when he sees people snacking around him?

Now, if it were Christians fasting, then it would be clear cut. Respect that. But when it comes to Muslims? I am leaning towards Paul's "all things to all people" line and thinking that I will not eat around them. Just respecting what they are doing without joining in or agreeing with the faith in which they are doing it.